Children’s Furniture Regulations in the European Union: An Overview

Children’s furniture, such as baby cots and high chairs, are subject to various safety standards, chemical restrictions, labelling, and testing requirements in the European Union. Additionally, children’s furniture with play value can also be subject to requirements concern toys.

In this guide, we take a closer look at the General Product Safety Regulation, Toy Safety Directive, REACH, and other compliance requirements relevant when importing or manufacturing children’s furniture for the EU market.

General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR)

The General Product Safety Regulation affects most products, including children’s furniture products.

It requires products sold in the EU market to be safe. This goal can be generally achieved by complying with the requirements of harmonised standards or other European standards. Additionally, you must also comply with documentation, labelling, and other requirements.

Harmonised standards

Here we list some harmonised standards that are relevant to children’s furniture.

EN 716-1 – Furniture – Children’s cots and folding cots for domestic use – Part 1: Safety requirements

This standard contains safety requirements for children’s cots for domestic use. The standard applies such products that are fully assembled and ready for use.

EN 1130 – Children’s furniture – Cribs – Safety requirements and test methods

This standard covers cribs, including cradles and bedside sleepers. The standard contains safety requirements and test methods for such products.

EN 16890 – Children’s furniture – Mattresses for cots and cribs – Safety requirements and test methods

This standard covers mattresses, mattress bases and toppers, used in children’s cots and cribs used for domestic and non-domestic purposes. It sets safety requirements and test methods for such products.

EN 1272 – Child care articles – Table mounted chairs – Safety requirements and test methods

This standard covers test methods for table mounted chairs for children that weight up to 16 kg and can sit without the need of help.

EN 14988 – Children’s high chairs – Requirements and test methods

This standard set requirements for free standing children’s high chairs that are used to eat by children younger than three years. However, medical high chairs are excluded by the scope of the standard.

Other standards

If you cannot find harmonised standards for your products, you can look for national standards, non harmonised EN standards, or other type of standards. Here we list some examples.

EN 12790-1 – Child care articles – Reclined cradles – Part 1: Reclined cradles for children up to when they start to try to sit up

This standard contains safety requirements and test methods for reclined cradles (fixed or folding) ideal for children who are unable to sit up without assistance.

EN 1022 – Furniture – Seating – Determination of stability

This standard contains test methods and requirements to determine the stability of all types of seating, including seating for children.

EN 1021-1 – Furniture – Assessment of the ignitability of upholstered furniture – Part 1: Ignition source smouldering cigarette

This standard, although not specific to children’s furniture products, can be used to assess the flammability of such products. It contains a test method to assess the ignitability of material combinations in upholstered seating.

Documentation

The regulation contains documentation requirements such as the following:

• Instructions to accompany the product
• Technical documentation
• The creation of an internal register of complaints

Labelling requirements

Here we list the main labelling requirements set by the regulation:

• Traceability information
• Labelling information regarding age suitability for children
• Warning labels
• Instructions

Toy Safety Directive

The Toy Safety Directive covers children’s toy products, including children’s furniture products that have play value. The Directive contains conformity assessment procedures, documentation, labelling and testing requirements.

Furniture with play value

The European Commission published a document titled “Guidance document on grey zone problem: Is a specific product covered by the Toy Safety Directive 2009/48/EC or not”, which provides examples of products that would be considered a toy under the Directive.

Although we could not find any examples of covered furniture products in the guidance document, there may exist furniture products that have play value to children.

In theory, a furniture product that incorporates swings or slides could fall under the scope of the Toy Safety Directive. It also also possible that furniture with built in mobiles or other toy components would be covered.

Below we list European standards harmonised under the Toy Safety Directive that would affect children’s furniture products with play value.

EN 71-8: Swings, slides and similar activity toys for indoor and outdoor family domestic use

This standard is part of the EN 71 series. It contains safety requirements and test methods for activity toys for domestic use, such as products that have swings or slides.

Other EN 71 parts

There may be other parts of EN 71 that are relevant to furniture with play value, for example:

• EN 71-1 – Safety of toys – Part 1: Mechanical and physical properties
• EN 71-2 – Safety of toys – Part 2: Flammability
• EN 71-3 – Safety of toys – Part 3: Migration of certain elements

Documentation

Here are the main documents that are required by the Toy Safety Directive.

Title	Description
Declaration of Conformity	The manufacturer is required to issue this document. Through the document, the manufacturer declares that the product conforms to the requirements of the Toy Safety Directive.
Technical documentation	Technical documentation refers to documents and information specified by the Toy Safety Directive that must be arranged to support the product’s conformity with the directive.
Instructions and safety information	The Toy Safety Directive requires covered products, including children’s furniture products to come with instructions and safety information.

Labelling requirements

In this section, we list the main labelling requirements that are set by the Toy Safety Directive

Title	Description
CE marking	The directive requires covered products to come with the CE marking, which should be followed by a pictogram or any other mark indicating a special risk or use, if necessary
Traceable information	Information for the purposes of traceability must accompany the product. This includes providing information about the product and the manufacturer (e.g. name and contact details).
Warning labels	The directive requires warnings to be provided to ensure that the safety requirements are met.

Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)

The Deforestation Regulation aims to combat deforestation and forest degradation. In doing so, it affects importers and manufacturers of wooden products that are mentioned in Annex I.

This includes, for example, the following product categories that are relevant to children’s furniture:

• Seats
• Wooden furniture used in the bedroom
• Wooden furniture used in the kitchen

Under the Regulation, covered children’s furniture products can only be sold if they are:

• Deforestation-free
• produced in accordance with the relevant legislation of the country of production
• Covered by a due diligence statement

Due diligence

The regulation requires operators such as importers and manufacturers of covered children’s furniture products to establish and maintain a due diligence system, as specified under Article 8.

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(a) the collection of information, data and documents needed to fulfil the requirements set out in Article 9;

(b) risk assessment measures as referred to in Article 10;

(c) risk mitigation measures as referred to in Article 11.

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However, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operators do not have to do this if their products:

a. Have already been subject to due diligence; and

b. The due diligence statement has already been submitted to an EU Commission database

In practice, this means that SMEs can avoid exercising due diligence as long as they find a supplier that has already done so.

Definition of SME

You can find the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Article 3 of Directive 2013/34/EU.

For example, a company is defined as a micro-enterprise if it does not exceed two of the three following criteria:

• Balance sheet total: 450,000 Euro
• Net turnover: 900 000 Euro
• Average number of employees during the financial year: 10

Non-EU businesses

Non-EU businesses selling covered children’s furniture products are not considered to be operators under this regulation. Instead, the first person or business established in the EU who makes the product available on the market is considered to be an operator.

Thus, it is not clear to us if a non-EU supplier can exercise the due diligence requirements on behalf of SMEs.

Documentation

Operators of covered children’s furniture products must arrange the following documents:

a. A due diligence statement declaring that the operator exercised due diligence and that no or only a negligible risk was found.

b. Collect information listed in Article 9 of the Regulation, such as the following information:

• Product description, including information about the wood used
• The quantity of products imported or exported
• The country of production
• Name and contact details of the supplier
• Adequately conclusive and verifiable information that the product is deforestation-free

However, as explained, in some cases SMEs can use the document of their supplier, as long as their supplier has already exercised due diligence. In this case, SMEs should identify the reference number of the due diligence statement covering the product as the information may be requested by competent authorities.

Protective Measures Against Pests of Plants Regulation

The Protective Measures Against Pests of Plants Regulation affects children’s furniture products that contain plants or plant products which may create a risk of the spread of quarantine pests.

Wood used in products like children’s furniture products may be considered as plant products if it fulfils the Regulation’s criteria, such as the following:

a. The wood used retains all or part of its natural round surface, with or without bark
b. The wood used has not retained its natural round surface due to sawing, cutting or cleaving

In the specific event that the children’s furniture product makes use of plant products, here are the key requirements that should be observed:

• Phytosanitary certificates
• Plant passport
• Traceability documents

REACH

The REACH Regulation covers substances and mixtures, including substances contained in articles like children’s furniture products and their parts. It contains substance restriction and notification requirements which are elaborated below.

Annex XVII

Annex XVII of the REACH regulation lists substances and their respective restrictions. Here are some examples of listed substances found in children’s furniture products:

a. Formaldehyde, which can be found in furniture made out of wood < 0.062 mg/m3

b. Cadmium and its compounds, which can be found in parts of furniture products like bed frames < 0.01%

c. Phthalates, which can be found in parts of furniture products that are made of plastic or coatings (the restrictions vary according to the phthalate, e.g. < 0.1%)

Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC)

These are substances which may pose serious health risks. Children’s furniture products that contain SVHCs in concentration levels exceeding 0.1% weight by weight have notification requirements, such as reporting to ECHA through the SCIP database.

Here are some examples of SVHCs that can be found in children’s furniture products:

• Lead
• Cadmium nitrate
• Nitrobenzene

Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulation

The Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulation restricts substances known as persistent organic pollutants that pose risks to human health and the environment.

Here are two examples of restricted substances that could be found in children’s furniture products:

a. Bis(pentabromophenyl) ether (DecaBDE), which can be used in fabrics as a flame retardent < 0.05%

b. Pentabromodiphenyl ether (PBDE), which can be used in upholstered furniture foam as flame retardant < 0.001%

Lab Testing

Lab testing is generally necessary to ensure that the products you sell are safe, in terms of flammability, substance restrictions, physical properties, and more. Additionally, without getting the product tested and retrieving lab test reports you would not be able to support required documents like Declaration of Conformity and technical documentation.

Here we explain some of the testing requirements concerning the General Product Safety Regulation and the Toy Safety Directive.

Regulation	Lab testing
General Product Safety Regulation	The necessary testing depends on the standards that apply to the product. For furniture, this could include: Stability testing Flammability testing Performance testing
Toy Safety Directive	This directive mainly requires testing under the relevant EN 71 parts. Testing may include: Small parts testing Flammability tests Substance testing
REACH	In order to comply with REACH, you need to test your product to ensure that it does not contain restricted substances above the set limits. This could include: Formaldehyde Cadmium Phthalates
Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulation	As for REACH, this regulation also sets substance restrictions. Thus, you would need to test your product to ensure that it does not contain flame retardants or other pollutants above the prescribed limit

Children’s furniture testing companies

Different lab testing companies can perform the tests specified in voluntary and mandatory standards for children’s furniture products. Here are lab testing companies that provide testing services for children’s furniture products:

• QIMA
• Intertek
• SGS